Important Collectors' Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Hotel Noga Hilton, Oct 16, 2005

LOT 66

Tempor Watch Co., Schwab Loeillet, Swiss, No. 120438. Made circa 1920. Fine and unusual, large, eight-day going Masonic keyless dashboard timepiece.

CHF 3,500 - 5,500

EUR 2,300 - 3,600 / USD 2,800 - 4,500

C. Gilt brass, triangular. D. White enamel decorated with the twelve principal Masonic symbols in place of numerals and the motto ?Love your fellow man, Lend him a helping hand?, outer minute track, Arabic twenty minute numerals. Black ?cathedrals? hands. M. 19???, nickel plated, ?fausses cotes? decoration, 15 jewels, straight line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance with three adjustments, blued steel Breguet balance spring, index regulator. Case and movement signed. Dim. 114 x 85 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good
Case: 3-6

Good

Slightly oxidized
Movement: 3-6*

Good

Slightly oxidized

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Notes

The present lot was previously sold by Antiquorum Geneva, on April 13, 1997, lot 587. On Feb 3, 1925, Théophile Schwab-Loeillet from Geneva, at 22 Rue de Mont-Blanc (two blocks from Antiquorum) patented a Masonic watch design which he traded under the name of Tempor Watch Co. The company was listed until the late 1920s. In 1930 the company was listed as "Schwab & Brandt, formerly Schwab-Loeillet, the only makers of Masonic watches". They modified the 1925 design, introducing triangular, high quality movements, and made the watch much slimmer.